The Divas Project

Divas of song and spirit, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

Plowshares Theatre Company begins 2013 by making good on its mission of "Celebrating the Black Woman" for the 2013 season. Arranged by artistic director Gary Anderson, "The Divas Project" is a world-premiere musical revue in homage to a half-century of American legends of popular music. Readers should note I attended and reviewed the production's sole preview performance before its official opening, but the prowess of the show's professional musicians and its atmosphere of lighthearted fun were already well in evidence.

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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Bustling 'Joseph' a saturated spectrum, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

With decades of roaring success under its belt and name recognition aplenty, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (lyrics by Tim Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Weber) is an instant draw. In the current production at The Encore Musical Theatre Company, director Barbara F. Cullen knows better than to mess with success, honoring the pizzazz of the show's broad, splashy rainbow of production numbers but in smaller-than-usual packaging.

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Plaid Tidings

Part 'Tidings,' but all 'Plaid', reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

Ushering in the holiday season, The Encore Musical Theatre Company once again turns to the celestial sphere, following its 2011 production of "Forever Plaid" with the holiday-edition sequel, "Plaid Tidings" (by Stuart Ross; original "Forever Plaid" arrangements by James Raitt; current arrangements by Raitt, Brad Ellis, Raymond Berg, and David Snyder). Presented with a jumbled grab bag of a retread-revue, director/choreographer Barbara F. Cullen and company create a merrily comical excursion in which the show's glut of musical achievements far outstrips its moderate Christmas mirth.

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The Fantasticks

Part bedtime story, part comedy-adventure, part life lesson, The Fantasticks (book and lyrics by Tom Jones; music by Harvey Schmidt) has endured for decades on the strength of its memorable songs and sweeping musings on courtship, love, and growing up. In the current production at the Encore Musical Theatre Company, director Barton Bund works outside-in to present a musical equally concerned with story and with storytelling itself. The ensuing sweet and light production harmlessly toys with the form while still honoring the story and style that have made this show a classic.

Bund’s premise finds the players annexing a playing space intended for some other production, a notion cemented by the commedia feel of Leo Babcock’s ornate but nonspecific backdrop. A rack full of idiomatic costumes (by Sharon Larkey Urick) becomes part of the preparations and leads to a darling innovation that doubles down on the sense of using every available resource. In this pre-show state, Daniel Walker’s lighting scheme is as deliberately wrong as it is dazzlingly right once the show gets on track. It’s a framing device that informs without dictating the fable that follows, leaving room for discoveries without insisting on itself.

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Xanadu

Leave your restraint at the door. Excesses are rampant in Xanadu (book by Douglas Carter Beane, music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar), the recent smash musical based on the 1980 film of the same name. The Michigan premiere at Meadow Brook Theatre presents a dizzying camp calliope, in which director Travis W. Walter couples controlled artistic proficiency with shamelessly fun comic entertainment.

Hearkening back to a 30-year-old source whose story deigns to borrow from ancient mythology, the past-upon-past framework makes the production feel doubly dated, in a good way. In 1980s Venice Beach, California, pedestrian artist and unfortunate cutoff shorts aficionado Sonny (David Havasi) draws a mural straight out of his dreams and summons seven muses of Greek mythology to inject the creative spirit into the modern age. Praise is due costume designer Liz Moore for conjuring divine togs through the visage of 80s fashion, in its monstrously garish synthetic ruffled wonder. Similarly, Kristen Gribbin’s scenic design draws on a classical aesthetic, offering a semicircle of Greek amphitheater seating right onstage for viewers who want to be part of the action, but with a concerted dappled faux-finish feel. In concert with Reid G. Johnson’s carefully portioned go-for-broke disco lighting, the design gives equal credence to classical and long-since-“modern,” engendering a hokey fondness that stays at the forefront of the production.

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